Socialist Workers Party, San Francisco

To the Members of Lodge 68 [handbill]

SWP, San Francisco. [1944], 8.5x14 inch sheet mimeographed one side, very good. In an effort to prevent layoffs as production declined towards the end of WW II at plants that produced equipment for the war effort, Machinists Lodge 68 banned overtime work. The Federal Mogul Corporation, a machine shop in San Francisco, implemented an "overtime movement" anyway, leading to protests by members of the union. The dispute was referred to the president, who ordered the plant seized because the company was deemed vital to the war effort. This handbill blames FDR, calls for labor to withdraw its support from the WLB and rescind the wartime no-strike pledge. The Communist Party USA used the Trotskyist call for strikes in wartime industry as evidence that they were in cahoots with the fascists and trying to sabotage the war effort; the SWP argues here instead that "Lodge 68's stand is a defense of the union contract and the right to work under union conditions."